Instant messaging (IM) is a real-time based communications system while email is more of a correspondence form of messaging. Upon receiving an email message, rather than replying to the listed recipients via email, a user may wish to expedite communications by chatting via IM with the sender of the email or with other people (e.g., other contacts) addressed in the email message.
In the past, vendors have offered an IM roster as a single pane in the main email window, thereby permitting a user to launch a separate IM client to chat with a contact that is listed on the IM roster. However, this type of environment provided nothing more than a single view of two separate clients (e.g., an email client and an IM client). Additionally, current implementations fail to provide the ability to launch any of a plurality of different media types from an email window. Further, presence and location of senders and recipients of an email message has currently been unavailable.
Thus, a heretofore unaddressed need exists in the industry to address the aforementioned deficiencies and inadequacies.